HERE COMES THE JUDGE - AT 9:08 A.M. ET:  To its credit, The New York Times runs a pair of fair-minded pieces (surprise) on Judge Sonia Sotomayor today, raising some legitimate doubts about her fitness to serve on the Supreme Court.  The first is on her temperament:

Judge Sotomayor’s colleagues on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit say her tough and direct questioning reflects engagement and, sometimes, an effort to persuade her colleagues...

...Other lawyers, though, are not so enamored. In the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary, which conducts anonymous interviews with lawyers to assess judges, she has gone from generally rave reviews to more tepid endorsements. Among the comments from lawyers was that she is a “terror on the bench” who “behaves in an out-of-control manner” and attacks lawyers “for making an argument she doesn’t like.”

Wait 'til she tries that with Scalia in the room.

And then there's her politics:

In the 1980s, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund sued the New York City Police Department, claiming that its promotion exams discriminated against Latinos and African-Americans...

...All those efforts were backed by the defense fund’s board of directors, an active and passionate group that included a young lawyer named Sonia Sotomayor, who this week was chosen by President Obama to join the country’s highest court.

Ms. Sotomayor’s involvement with the defense fund has so far received scant attention. But her critics, including some Republican senators who will vote on her nomination, have questioned whether she has let her ethnicity, life experiences and public advocacy creep into her decisions as a judge.

COMMENT:  These are entirely appropriate issues for Senate review.  Judge Sotomayor will be confirmed, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the opposition placing her entire record before the public, and asking her the same probing questions asked of President Bush's nominees.

May 29, 2009